Saturday

Nov 3, 2018 at 5:28 PMNov 3, 2018 at 5:28 PM

The traveling version of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, on display through Nov. 5 at Ponaganset High School in Glocester, draws veterans to remember those they lost and recall their own service and sacrifice.

He seemed 70-something and was leaving the traveling version of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on display at Ponaganset High School.

I approached and asked what brought him to visit.

It was early afternoon in a light, gray rain.

The man took a moment, then said, “I know somebody on the wall.”

Would he be comfortable sharing about it?

He began to say something, then had to stop.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t.”

I approached another man, this one older. He gave his name as Richard Leveille, a Korean vet showing respect for the almost 58,000 fellow soldiers on the wall.

He told me his kid brother Norman pulled two tours in Vietnam as a forward scout radioing back enemy positions.

“He saw it all,” said Leveille.

Norman made it home, but he may have paid a price for his service.

“I think the Agent Orange ate him up,” said Leveille. His brother died at 45.

Then I spotted a man in a Vietnam veteran's cap bearing images of a Purple Heart and Bronze Star.

His name is David Ethier, 68, and though he said it was hard for him, he was kind enough to chat at length, so let his story stand for the many like him who visited.

“I was a grunt,” he said.

Ethier, who is from Johnston, was wounded three times, all in 1969.

“He was almost on the wall,” said his wife, Judy.

I had to press Ethier for details.

“We walked into an ambush,” he said.

He remembers rounds suddenly coming from two sides, hitting the ground and mud flying from each impact. He was struck by three bullets and still has scars on his chin and by his right clavicle.

He was evacuated to Japan, then to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for a long recovery. They told him if he hadn't pressed mud against the worst wounds after he fell, he likely would have bled to death.

It took 10 years for one of the bullets to work its way far enough from a nerve to be removed. Judy said they still have it framed with his medals.

A few minutes before I approached him, Ethier had sought out Wall panel 23W, which bears the name of his Vietnam staff sergeant, John Bellamy of Van Nuys, California. Bellamy was killed in the same ambush that wounded Ethier.

“Such a nice kid,” said Ethier.

The Wall’s records say Bellamy died "outright" in combat on June 6, 1969, at age 23 of multiple fragmentation wounds.

Ethier spent his career with the U.S. Postal Service, first carrying mail, then in management.

As we stood under a drizzle, I asked if the war is still in him.

“I left as a teenager,” he said, “and came back as an old man.”

“He had nightmares for years," said Judy. She added that he still sometimes does.

Returning was hard, too.

"You came home from World War II,” said Ethier, “everyone celebrated you. We came home — we had to hide.”

I pressed him about his other two Purple Hearts. Both were from booby traps — the first tripped by a fellow soldier walking five guys in front of him, the second by one three guys behind. Ethier was first hit with shrapnel in his left wrist, then in his back.

I asked what happened to those who took the direct hits. They survived, he said, but lost limbs, and more.

Judy quietly said, “I never knew that.” They’ve been married over 40 years.

Judy told me people don’t understand what soldiers like her husband still carry around with them.

She said even she doesn’t know.

Then they walked on in the rain as others like them arrived to pay respects to the fallen.

Mark Patinkin’s columns run Sundays and Wednesdays.

— mpatinki@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7370

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Twitter: @MarkPatinkin

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